U.S troops are leaving Iraq at the end of this year

  www.CNN.com.  10/22/11

I am happy that they are leaving because they have been in that country since 2003 and a lot of money has been wasted on this war. that money could have been used to improve the economy.
Patrick uchebo

Gadhafi’s Death. Over all what are your thoughts?

CNN. 20 October 2011. 21 October 2011 http://youtu.be/uHmngAjFd8s.

ILIANA

Can WikiLeaks be prosecuted for leaking government documents?

The third large release of documents from the shadowy website WikiLeaks on Nov. 28, 2010, shared more than 250,000 sensitive diplomatic cables and directives from the U.S. State Department, and followed large dumps of documents from the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. The leak sparked furor among lawmakers and government officials, but can anything be done to punish WikiLeaks?

 

The web site first appeared in January 2007, its hosted by a Swedish that gaurds information about its clients. It has no headquarters and has hundreds of volunteers around the world. It collects donations to pay for upkeep of the operation, and legal representation in the past has been donated by media organizations such as the Associated Press and the Los Angeles Times.

 

College Textbooks Are So Expensive!

Always we have to buy textbooks for classes and sometimes we don’t even use them. Depending on what class your taking, the price can be really high because they’re in a bundle and you might not even need some of the books in a bundle!

“Every year there seems to be a bit of news buzz in the first weeks of August about how expensive college textbooks have become. To help ease the burden, Congress has enacted new legislation mandating that institutions of higher learning be more transparent about college costs.

 

One of the reasons behind the higher costs of textbooks is something called “bundling.” Publishers often package textbooks with additional supplements, such as CD study guides – useful, but not always necessary. The new Higher Education Act is asking publishers to provide clearer pricing information to bookstore buyers and educators, in addition to offering unbundled textbooks.

College textbooks are big business, even though publishers insist that profit margins are small. The University of Arkansas is predicting that its students will collectively spend more than $2.5 million this month alone on textbooks.

checkcity.com

Robert Ronstadt, a former vice-president at Boston University, has self-published a book and maintains a website on how to help keep college costs down. (It’s hard not to point out the irony of buying Ronstadt’s book for ideas on saving money, but his motives are obviously for the greater good.)

The California state auditor has also released a 102-page report suggesting ways educators can help minimize costs for students. You can read the full report here.

MSNBC.com features a good tip list for student textbook shoppers: Compare prices, rent or share books instead, and get to know online resources like Amazon’s Kindle. Then there’s that interesting place called the library, where you can borrow books – free.

When I was in college we didn’t have to worry about bells and whistles with our textbooks. Few students even had their own computers (this is not as long ago as that sounds, I promise). I still have a number of my college books, complete with earnest notes in the margins. Occasionally I dust off one of these books and give it a good thumb-through. I’m always surprised at how quickly the ideas absorbed in that college classroom come flooding back. I’d be disappointed if our current generation of college students missed out on being able to shelve memories of their own.”

The point is we are spending to much on COLLEGE TEXTBOOKS, they should be less I mean they are for our education.

collegeview.com

 

Nordin, Kendra. “Expensive College Textbooks – CSMonitor.com.” The Christian Science Monitor – CSMonitor.com. 18 Aug. 2008. Web. 20 Oct. 2011. <http://www.csmonitor.com/Books/chapter-and-verse/2008/0818/expensive-college-textbooks&gt;.

Just A Thought . . .

I was in down town dallas yesterday and i happend to pass by city hall, and i saw all the protestors for the occupy movement camping out and i kind of thought , dont those people have jobs? what do they eat if they have no money to buy food with? after this is all over what do they have back to fall on? im all for the whole making a change thing and making my word count but are these people really doing this to make a difference? or just because they have no where to stay?

 

-Bianca Rebollar

Social Security Checks Increase

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — Senior citizens will soon get their first raise in three years, the government announced Wednesday.

Social Security recipients will receive a cost of living adjustment of 3.6% starting in January.

Because inflation has been very low in recent years, beneficiaries have not gotten a COLA increase since 2009, when they received a 5.8% boost.

However, most seniors are not likely to receive the full amount of the COLA increase because the expected hike in Medicare Part B premiums could eat up part of the raise. The change in Medicare premiums should be announced next month.

For the past two years when Social Security benefits stayed the same, many seniors were shielded from the increase in Medicare premiums because of a “hold harmless” provision that protects more than 70% of beneficiaries. These recipients can’t see their monthly Social Security checks decrease because of a Medicare hike.

Hey Social Security, I’m not dead!

However, high-income beneficiaries and new enrollees did see their benefits reduced because they are not covered under the provision. Medicare premiums rose by 4.4% for 2011.

The COLA increase is welcome news to many seniors who have seen their costs go up, while their monthly Social Security checks have remained flat, said David Certner, AARP’s legislative policy director.

Social Security plays a vital role in keeping senior citizens and the disabled afloat. Nearly 55 million people receive Social Security. The average monthly check for the elderly will jump $43, to $1,229, while for the disabled, it will rise $39 to $1,111.

Social Security benefits represent about 41% of the elderly’s income, according to the Social Security Administration. But 22% of married couples and 43% of singles rely on the monthly checks for 90% of their income.

10 million could pay more Social Security tax

Many seniors have felt squeezed since banks are paying virtually no interest on savings accounts and stock market declines has eroded their retirement accounts. Plus, health care costs have skyrocketed.

“This is good news for seniors, who certainly feel they are falling behind,” Certner said. “When you talk to people, they don’t feel costs are going down.”

The higher inflation index also means that workers will pay more into the Social Security system, said Polina Vlasenko, research fellow at the American Institute for Economic Research. Next year, the Social Security tax will be levied on the first $110,100 of a person’s wages, up from $106,800 this year.

Going forward, Social Security beneficiaries may not see such generous COLA increases. As part of the debt reduction talks, lawmakers are looking at changing the formula upon which the annual increase in based, Certner said. This could lower the COLA increase by several tenths of a percentage point, which may not sound like much but adds up over time, he said.
My opinion on this is that what they are doing is good because senior citizens haven’t gotten a raise in a long time and also think that it should stay that way.
Patrick Uchebo

Democratic election fraud

Elections – POLITICS

College Student Credited With Uncovering Possible Election Fraud in Indiana’s 2008 Primary

By Eric Shawn

Published October 18, 2011

Shocking election fraud allegations have stained a state’s 2008 presidential primary – and it took a college student to uncover them.

“This fraud was obvious, far-reaching and appeared to be systemic,” 22-year-old Ryan Nees told Fox News, referring to evidence he uncovered while researching electoral petitions from the 2008 Democratic Party primary in Indiana.

Nees’ investigation centered on the petitions that put then-senators Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton on the ballot. As many as 150 of the names and signatures, it is alleged, were faked. So many, in fact, that the numbers raise questions about whether Obama’s campaign had enough legitimate signatures to qualify for a spot on the ballot.

“What seems to have happened is that a variety of people in northern Indiana knew that this fraud occurred, and actively participated and perpetuated the fraud, and did so on behalf of two presidential campaigns,” according to Nees.

Prosecutors are now investigating. The scandal has already led to the sudden resignation Monday night of Butch Morgan, chairman of the St. Joseph County Democratic Party. He denied any wrongdoing, saying he looks “forward to an investigation that will exonerate me.”

Nees, a junior at Yale University, served as an intern in the Obama White House last year and supports the president’s re-election. But as an intern at the non-partisan political newsletter Howey Politics Indiana, he delved into the Byzantine and complicated world of petition signatures and found reams of signatures that he says appeared to be written in the same handwriting, some apparently copied from previous petitions.

The names were subsequently submitted to Indiana election authorities as the signatures of legitimate voters. Nees and Brian Howey, the newsletter’s publisher, then teamed up with the South Bend Tribune to break the story.

St. Joseph County Prosecuting Attorney Michael Dvorak announced Tuesday that the U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Indiana will not be investigating these allegations. So Dvorak is doing so and has requested the assistance of the Indiana State Police.

In a statement, Dvorak said the U.S. attorney “does not investigate allegations of fraud in the submission of petitions by political parties for the placement of the names of candidates on the ballot for federal primary elections. They do, however, investigate fraud in voter registration, the actual voting process and in the tabulation of ballots.”

The state Republican Party Chairman Eric Holcomb had called for a federal investigation.

“We don’t know the extent of the crime. We don’t know how many people. We don’t know if it was organized. Those were some of my questions. How deep does it go? Does it go to one county? Does it go to one district? Does it go to one state? Does it go to 49 other states?”

Indiana Democratic Party Chairman Dan Parker also supports an investigation. He released a statement that said, in part, “We continue to fully support the investigation into this isolated incident in St. Joseph County. We want to know who committed this act, and we want that person held accountable.”

Nees thinks the candidates did not have knowledge of the alleged forgeries, but he says such things can easily happen.

“This appears to have been the actions of the northern Indiana political machine that operated within the Indiana Democratic Party, not within the campaigns of either President Obama or Secretary of State Clinton,” he said.

“What’s important to me is that this sort of thing not occur in the future. This happened with impunity because no one thought that they would ever get caught, and in fact it was likely that no one would ever catch them because no structural safeguard existed to ensure that this wouldn’t occur.”

Howey, the publisher of the political newsletter, told Fox News he also plans to examine the petitions that put Sen. John McCain’s name on the Republican ballot. “It makes sense to look at the whole thing,” he said.

As Nees sat on a bench on the leafy downtown green in New Haven, Conn., with the imposing ivy and Gothic architecture of Yale behind him, he reflected on what he had found back home in his home state.

“Election fraud is particularly troublesome, because it undermines the integrity of our voting process and basically of our democracy. Maintaining the integrity of elections in the United States is an important thing.”

If you suspect Voter or election fraud where you live, contact the Fox News Voter Fraud Unit, at: Voterfraud@Foxnews.com.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/10/18/college-student-credited-with-uncovering-possible-election-fraud-in-indianas/?test=latestnews#ixzz1bEkuImif

Dates to post on

October 2011

10/19/11. Tim bc, Melissa Men.

10/20/11. Maunice, Bronca R.

10/21/11. Anna, Crystal M.

10/22/11. Edwrad zhu, Patrick Uchebo

10/23/11. Huan V., Gracilag

10/24/11. Susana Quiroz, Francisco Gonzalez

10/25/11. Iliana R., Mauricio Mancilla

10/26/11. Joselyn Rodriguez

10/27/11. Alex T., Juan V.

10/28/11. Timbo, Melissd men.

10/29/11. Esmeralda Armijo, Nillicent

10/29/11. Timbo, Melissa Men.

10/31/11. Domillique, Joel

11/1/11. Maurice, Bionca

11/2/11. Anna, Crystal M.

Polling the Occupy Wall Street Crowd

 

By DOUGLAS SCHOEN

President Obama and the Democratic leadership are making a critical error in embracing the Occupy Wall Street movement—and it may cost them the 2012 election.

Last week, senior White House adviser David Plouffe said that “the protests you’re seeing are the same conversations people are having in living rooms and kitchens all across America. . . . People are frustrated by an economy that does not reward hard work and responsibility, where Wall Street and Main Street don’t seem to play by the same set of rules.” Nancy Pelosi and others have echoed the message.

 

Getty Images‘Occupy Wall Street’ demonstrators in the financial district of New York

Yet the Occupy Wall Street movement reflects values that are dangerously out of touch with the broad mass of the American people—and particularly with swing voters who are largely independent and have been trending away from the president since the debate over health-care reform.

The protesters have a distinct ideology and are bound by a deep commitment to radical left-wing policies. On Oct. 10 and 11, Arielle Alter Confino, a senior researcher at my polling firm, interviewed nearly 200 protesters in New York’s Zuccotti Park. Our findings probably represent the first systematic random sample of Occupy Wall Street opinion.

Our research shows clearly that the movement doesn’t represent unemployed America and is not ideologically diverse. Rather, it comprises an unrepresentative segment of the electorate that believes in radical redistribution of wealth, civil disobedience and, in some instances, violence. Half (52%) have participated in a political movement before, virtually all (98%) say they would support civil disobedience to achieve their goals, and nearly one-third (31%) would support violence to advance their agenda.

The vast majority of demonstrators are actually employed, and the proportion of protesters unemployed (15%) is within single digits of the national unemployment rate (9.1%).

An overwhelming majority of demonstrators supported Barack Obama in 2008. Now 51% disapprove of the president while 44% approve, and only 48% say they will vote to re-elect him in 2012, while at least a quarter won’t vote.

Fewer than one in three (32%) call themselves Democrats, while roughly the same proportion (33%) say they aren’t represented by any political party.

Related Video

James Taranto on President Obama’s Wall Street ties and protesters’ disenchantment with the Democratic party.

What binds a large majority of the protesters together—regardless of age, socioeconomic status or education—is a deep commitment to left-wing policies: opposition to free-market capitalism and support for radical redistribution of wealth, intense regulation of the private sector, and protectionist policies to keep American jobs from going overseas.

Sixty-five percent say that government has a moral responsibility to guarantee all citizens access to affordable health care, a college education, and a secure retirement—no matter the cost. By a large margin (77%-22%), they support raising taxes on the wealthiest Americans, but 58% oppose raising taxes for everybody, with only 36% in favor. And by a close margin, protesters are divided on whether the bank bailouts were necessary (49%) or unnecessary (51%).

Thus Occupy Wall Street is a group of engaged progressives who are disillusioned with the capitalist system and have a distinct activist orientation. Among the general public, by contrast, 41% of Americans self-identify as conservative, 36% as moderate, and only 21% as liberal. That’s why the Obama-Pelosi embrace of the movement could prove catastrophic for their party.

In 1970, aligning too closely with the antiwar movement hurt Democrats in the midterm election, when many middle-class and working-class Americans ended up supporting hawkish candidates who condemned student disruptions. While that 1970 election should have been a sweep against the first-term Nixon administration, it was instead one of only four midterm elections since 1938 when the president’s party didn’t lose seats.

With the Democratic Party on the defensive throughout the 1970 campaign, liberal Democrats were only able to win on Election Day by distancing themselves from the student protest movement. So Adlai Stevenson III pinned an American flag to his lapel, appointed Chicago Seven prosecutor Thomas Foran chairman of his Citizen’s Committee, and emphasized “law and order”—a tactic then employed by Ted Kennedy, who denounced the student protesters as “campus commandos” who must be repudiated, “especially by those who may share their goals.”

Today, having abandoned any effort to work with the congressional super committee to craft a bipartisan agreement on deficit reduction, President Obama has thrown in with those who support his desire to tax oil companies and the rich, rather than appeal to independent and self-described moderate swing voters who want smaller government and lower taxes, not additional stimulus or interference in the private sector.

Rather than embracing huge new spending programs and tax increases, plus increasingly radical and potentially violent activists, the Democrats should instead build a bridge to the much more numerous independents and moderates in the center by opposing bailouts and broad-based tax increases.

Put simply, Democrats need to say they are with voters in the middle who want cooperation, conciliation and lower taxes. And they should work particularly hard to contrast their rhetoric with the extremes advocated by the Occupy Wall Street crowd.

Mr. Schoen, who served as a pollster for President Bill Clinton, is author of “Hopelessly Divided: The New Crisis in American Politics and What It Means for 2012 and Beyond,” forthcoming from Rowman and Littlefield

Union Thugs

Burt Prelutsky

 

 

Introducing Tom Dewey to Barack Obama

Posted: October 18, 2011 in Burt Prelutsky
Tags: Burt Prelutsky, President Barack Obama, Thomas E. Dewey

 

 

 

 

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By this time, we’re all aware that union thugs, including nurses and school teachers, not only went AWOL from their jobs, but caused over seven million dollars in damage to Wisconsin’s state capitol when they stormed Madison and tried to bully Governor Walker and the state legislators into capitulating to their outlandish demands. What you may not have heard about is that hundreds of goons from the Longshoreman’s Union descended on the Port of Longview (Washington), broke down gates, smashed windows, overpowered security guards, damaged railroad cars, cut brake lines and dumped carloads of grain, in a jurisdictional dispute with a different union.

Speaking of union thugs, Teamster boss Jimmy Hoffa welcomed Chairman Obama to a Labor Day celebration by calling on his members to take out Tea Party members. I don’t believe he was suggesting an evening of dinner and slow dancing.

It all leads me to pose the following question: What is the difference between the folks who do the bidding of union bosses and Hitler’s Brown Shirts? Answer: The Nazis had a better dress code.

Watching Barack Obama demand that Congress pass his Jobs Act, a half trillion dollar bill that hasn’t been written and calls for funding with money that doesn’t exist, is a classic case of déjà vu. One can’t help being reminded of ObamaCare, which, as Nancy Pelosi coyly pointed out at the time, required passage as a precursor to our knowing what it said.

 

Thomas E. Dewey (1902-1971)

It’s obvious that Obama realizes that no Republican is going to agree to raise taxes to finance this latest bit of legislative lunacy. He tosses it out for no other reason than as a way to blame Congress for record unemployment and a disastrous economy as he campaigns for re-election.

Clearly, someone, David Axelrod perhaps, remembered that Harry Truman successfully used Congress as a scapegoat when he won the 1948 election. There are a few important differences, however. One, the opposition party controlled both houses in 1948. In Obama’s case, his own party controlled both houses from 2006-2010 and still controls the Senate.

For another thing, Truman was running against Tom Dewey, who had not only been walloped badly by a nearly comatose FDR in 1944, but had been famously mocked by Alice Roosevelt Longworth, Teddy Roosevelt’s socialite daughter, as bearing a striking resemblance to the little man who stands atop wedding cakes. Rick Perry, Michele Bachmann and Mitt Romney, on the other hand, are not only more photogenic than Obama, but are far less arrogant, annoying and narcissistic.

Finally, Harry Truman had been the man who green-lighted the dropping of A-Bombs on Japan, bringing World War II to an abrupt and joyous conclusion.

Although Obama will try to cast himself as the guy who single-handedly brought down Osama bin Laden, most people will recall how he hogged the credit, making it sound during his victory lap as if he and not the Navy Seals had carried off the mission.

Aside from those parasites feeding off the public trough, the majority of American voters will see him as the nincompoop they associate with the trillion dollar stimulus; ObamaCare; Cash for Clunkers; a fixation on “green” jobs; appointing leftwing dingbats like Kagan and Sottomayor to the Supreme Court; making the racist gun runner Eric Holder head of the Justice Department; kowtowing to Islamics while kicking Israel in the teeth; ignoring the counsel of his military advisors, instead using our young warriors as political pawns; and, lest we forget, lecturing Republicans on civility while turning a blind eye and a deaf ear to his political henchmen when they refer to conservatives as bigots, fascists, hostage-taking terrorists and, most recently, as sons of bitches.

About the only good thing that Obama can take credit for is that he has led millions of people to re-read their Bibles. It’s not that they’re seeking confirmation that he is in fact the Second Coming of the Messiah, a role in which he cast himself in 2008, when he spoke of himself as The One who would see to it that the oceans would recede and the planet would heal and America would, all thanks to him, be radically transformed.

Rather, the faithful are going back to the Good Book in order to better compare biblical plagues to those wrought by Barack Obama.

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